Claudia Hofmann engages in a theoretical modelling of international learning processes and the substantiation of this model through three cases from international politics.

She answers two questions: How may international actors learn as a collective? And how may the lessons learned influence actor behaviour and problem solving processes? As a foundation for answering these questions she examines the nature of actor behaviour within a social international system and integrates the diffusion of norms and values among macro-level actors.

The workshop, summarised in this publication, brought together the crisis prevention approach and development cooperation in Central Asia. Employees of German development institutes discussed, which crisis preventive effects development cooperation had there up until now, and whether and how far it can be shaped and developed further based on experience and conceptual ideas. The material in the publication make the brainstorming character of the event obvious.

The authors from the academic institutes and the non-governmental organisations paint a fairly critical picture of the situation in Central Asia and see a great challenge for development policies. At the same time, the specifics of the situation in Central Asia is being made clear: The central assumption of the BMZ’s concept of crisis prevention, crisis management, and peace support is being confirmed that every conflict is unique and demands targeted responses. There are no blueprints and standard solutions for development cooperation. The BMZ’s concept for Central Asia attempts to find specific approaches for the region. It has to be reviewed and – if necessary – developed further.

This study is the outcome of a research project conducted by the German Development Institute (DIE) from late 2004 until the summer of 2006. The research included numerous personal and telephone interviews. Many of those interviewed made documents available. Various international institutions also took part in a written survey.

We would like to convey our sincere thanks to all those interviewed and all the individuals and institutions otherwise involved in the project for their cooperation and frankness.

This study is the outcome of a research project conducted by the German Development Institute (DIE) from late 2004 until the summer of 2006. The research included numerous personal and telephone interviews. Many of those interviewed made documents available. Various international institutions also took part in a written survey.

We would like to convey our sincere thanks to all those interviewed and all the individuals and institutions otherwise involved in the project for their cooperation and frankness.

Formal actors are faced with vast shortcomings in articulating a legal foundation for engaging non-state armed groups. This essay addresses the difficulties, differences and commonalities for state and non-state actors in engaging with non-state armed groups. It demonstrates how non-governmental organizations offer the potential to fill the gap in the international legal regime by employing lower-key initiatives that avoid political issues such as the legitimization or recognition of non-state armed groups. The essay concludes that ‘small agreements’ in the humanitarian field bear the capacity to contribute enormously to prospective peace processes.

The persistent rise of intra-state conflict and the concerns for national and human security across borders that accompanies this trend makes the need for giving heightened attention to non-state armed groups unavoidable. In the humanitarian field, however, organisations are faced with vast shortcomings regarding an articulative and universal legal foundation, so that international relations with non-state armed groups have primarily been reliant on cease-fire agreements and peace treaties, which in many cases used to be the only legal way of interaction with non-state armed groups.

However, recently, the urgency of engaging non-state armed groups has been increasingly addressed mainly by non-governmental organisations, which are less bound by state-centric frameworks. This paper addresses the differences, commonalities, and difficulties for state and non-state actors engaging non-state armed groups.

The paper will demonstrate how non-governmental organisations present the possibility to fill a gap in the international legal regime by employing lower-key initiatives that avoid political issues like legitimisation or recognition of non-state armed groups. Moreover, the paper argues that “small agreements” in the humanitarian field with regard to engaging non-state armed groups bear the capacity to contribute enormously to prospective peace processes.

A concept of reconciliation in South Africa is an intrinsic one that needs to involve more than the transformation of the political landscape. Applying Montville’s conditions for reconciliation it becomes comprehensible that an understanding of the “other” as well as the “self” must be one step of a “mutual re­humanisation” and, thus, a re­discovery of ethnic identities. With its public hearings the TRC aims at merging values of both cultures within the country but by doing so it involuntarily invokes psychological re­ victimisation and re­perpetratorisation, the restriction of individual rights for “national unity and reconciliation”, as well as a culture of guilt.

Analysing the importance of truth and highlighting indigenous ways of reconciliation, however, can lead to the inclusion of white and non­white ethnic culture to a new South African identity, the emphasis of the role of community and the restoration of a social equilibrium, and further establish an outlook into a common future.